Stop Fighting Resistance: The Real Reason Clients Push Back (Motivational Interviewing)

“Clients aren’t fighting you… they’re fighting to feel understood.”

In this episode of MI4Change, Dr. Monica Gilbert breaks down one of the most misunderstood concepts in therapy, ABA, and leadership: resistance.

Why do parents, clients, and even supervisees push back—even when they know the intervention works?

It’s not defiance.
It’s not lack of motivation.
And it’s not something you need to “win.”

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why resistance is actually valuable information
• How ambivalence (not defiance) drives client behavior
• Why giving more advice often makes things worse
• How to shift from fixing → evoking
• The exact questions that help clients find their own solutions
• How to reduce burnout by working smarter, not harder

You’ll also hear a powerful strategy using future-based questions (the “miracle question”) to help parents connect present behavior to long-term goals—without confrontation.

This episode is essential for therapists, BCBAs, psychologists, coaches, and leaders who want to:
✔ Improve client engagement
✔ Increase buy-in
✔ Reduce resistance
✔ Feel less frustrated in sessions

Because the goal isn’t to convince people to change…
It’s to help them want to change.

Learn more about Motivational Interviewing and explore on-demand courses at www.drmonicagilbert.com

Join the MI Academy for practical training and resources — and enjoy an exclusive 15% off with code MIFORCHANGE at checkout.

📲 Connect with me on Instagram: @drmonicagilbert

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome, welcome everyone. Welcome to another episode of MI for Change, where we talk about the conversations that actually move people forward using MI in real life, real sessions, and real leadership. And I heard this, and I don't know who said this, and hopefully they don't trademark me or anything and they don't get me in trouble. But I heard this and I thought it was very interesting. And it was something like arguments are not something to win. The person in front of you is not fighting you, they're fighting to feel understood by you. And what a powerful message that is. Imagine if we would walk into sessions with that in mind. If before we started any type of conversation, any type of interaction with someone, we would stop and think, hmm, this person is really not fighting me. They just want to be understood by me. Wouldn't that change the way that you reflect back? Wouldn't that change the way that you respond to that person? I think it would. I have a hunch, and I really think that that would change the way that the conversation flows because you are now listening. You are not just trying to block or trying to defend yourself. You're coming in with that curiosity, which allows us to go deeper into what's going on. I had a conversation with one of my interns, and she was having a very difficult time with a parent. And I asked her, and I said, Well, why do you think that parent doesn't intervene in the way that you are asking that parent to intervene? And she kind of like just gave me this look in blank, and she was like, I don't know. And I asked her, Well, what do you think she would respond to this question? And I asked her a question and she looked at me and said, I have no clue. And I said, hmm, then perhaps that's where we have to start before we start coming up with interventions on how to get parent buy-in and yada, yada, yada. We have to get to the core of why they are resisting. Remember, whenever someone resists, whenever someone engages in one of these resistant behaviors, we have to see that as information. What are they, what are they telling us without actually telling us? That is information that we can use. And it's important to go into the baseline, go a little deeper into why it is that they're choosing to not engage in this intervention when they obviously see the value in it. It's not like we're going into our sessions with our clients and we're telling them to do something that's completely detrimental, or at least I hope you're not. We're going into sessions with things that are valuable. We're going into sessions with interventions that either have worked for us in the past, have worked for our clients in the past. We have the research to show that it works. And they probably see some of that. We have to remember that there's another side of them that also sees value in not doing that intervention. Think about the classical example of a child with a parent in a toy store. The parent gives in because they don't want others to see how the child is crying, or they just don't want others to think that they're a bad parent. So they give in. They also know that the more they do this, the more the child is going to continue to do this. There's a part of them that probably tells them this. I'm sure of it. There's so much information out there that it would be weird for them to not know. Let's take this parent again as an example. Part of them is like, you know what? If I stop giving in to these tantrums, then yes, probably a lot of people will be looking at me, but long-term effects is that the child will stop crying. It's gonna work. It's gonna work for the long run. I know this is going to work. The other side of the parent is like, yeah, but right now is just I can't do it. I can't deal with the stares. I can't deal with what I think they are thinking, or I think what other people will say about my parental behavior of allowing my child to continue screaming. So one side of them is pulled into, I want to do this because I see the positive consequences in the long-term future. The other side is like, well, right now, I need to survive. Right now, I'm just not going to do it. So they're conflicted. They're in this, what we call ambivalence stage. And they're conflicted by this information. Most of the clients, most of the parents, therapists that we work with are in this stage. They're like in this ambivalent stage where they see the value in what you're saying and it kind of matches with eight one long term, but they also see the value in staying in the same spot. How do you compete with this? How do you compete with someone who sees the value for both things? Well, the answer is that you don't. You don't compete. You're not in an arm wrestle challenge. You aren't doing any of that. You're not competing with that. You're working with them. You're working with them in order for them to see the light themselves. They are able to get to that point where they realize this is the best option. Out of these two, this is probably the best option. And your job as a clinician is to help them get there. That's all you're doing. You're planting the seed, you're watching it grow, you're pouring some water here and there, but you are not growing the plan for them. It's so important that we learn to do this as clinicians because I'm tired of seeing the burnout in our field in both psychology and applied behavior analysis. I see the burnout every day. I see it around me. I feel burnt out sometimes. And a lot of this comes from us wanting to change and wishing that things would change and just feeling like we don't have the control. We don't have the power. And essentially, at the end of the day, we really don't have the power. We have to acknowledge that everyone is capable and is able to and will do what they find most valuable to them. And we have to also respect that. We have to respect that piece. The other part of this is evoking. I was having this conversation with this intern, and she was like, I don't get it. The parent comes to me with a problem, and I give them all of these solutions, and they never do it. And I said, Okay, well, what about their solutions? And she kind of stopped and looked at me again. There were a lot of blank stares in this conversation, obviously. And I'm like, Yeah, like what are what are they bringing in? And she was like, Well, I never really asked her. And I said, hmm, would you be open to trying a different approach? And she said, Yeah, of course. The approach I'm using is not working. I said, Nope, it is not. Uh so I said, next time that you go in the session with the parent, ask them. And you can start off with asking this leading or this open-ended question where you are, it's called the miracle question, actually. Well, you can ask it in different ways, but this is one way of asking it. What do you, what do you want to see in your child five years from now? Or what do you expect to see? How about 10 years from now? And the child, I think, was five years old. So I said, make it more specific. So, what would you want to see in your child when he's 10 years old? Well, I would want him to be more independent. I would want him to be able to eat his foods by himself, to make at least one friend. Okay. How about when your child is 15? Well, when he's 15, I I um I would want him to, you know, be doing well in school or whatever it is. How about when he's 20? Hmm, that's a little harder when he's 20 years old. Maybe volunteer somewhere, start getting ready for a job. I really wish that and I really hope that he's able to find a job where he's able to use some of the skills that he's learned. Okay, how about 25? And I kind of just stopped there. And the point of me doing this is because I wanted the parent to start problem solving. I wanted to plant that seed and for them to start thinking about that. As parents, we don't think that through as much as people think we do. We just kind of think about, okay, in the future, this is sort of like what I expect to see with my child, but we don't really walk them. We don't really walk through those every five years. So when you do that, you're showing the consequences of what's currently going on. Hey, and if everything is going on well, then we're on the right track. But how about if it was, if it isn't? That's the flip side. You want your child to be able to put on his clothes independently five years from now. Where is he now? What do you have to do, mom, at this moment in order to get to that level? What can we start doing now? So five years from now, he gets to that goal. So you see the difference when we break it down like that, the parent starts thinking about it. And I'm not telling the parent what they should do in those five years. I'm asking them because guess what? They know. And they probably know better than I do because this is their child. So let's start evoking this information from them. Don't get scared to do it. I'm sure they will feel empowered. They will feel more a part of the session, more like they form more part in the session. And guess what? You don't have to work as hard. You don't have to think for them. You don't have to come up with all of these goals and all these things that you're wishing for them. You just sit back, you reflect, you summarize, and you do all these techniques, which aren't easy techniques, but sounds easier than what it is. But the essential point here is that you don't have to find the solutions. You just have to ask better questions. And that is where motivational interviewing comes in. How do we start evoking instead of giving advice, giving recommendation, giving all of ourselves? How do we start evoking from them? Start having them form part of the session, an essential part of the session, and really work together in that partnership, in that collaboration that we want to see. If we start doing things that way, we're going to build better relationships with our families, which is great. Everyone wants to have a good relationship with the families. We're going to see more buy-in. We'll actually see parents starting to intervene in the way that we expect or want them to intervene. So if they do that, better outcomes for the child themselves as well. And the other side of it is that it's also valuable to us as clinicians because we're going to work smarter instead of harder. We're not going to feel burnt out. We're not going to feel as frustrated. And we're going to feel like, hey, I was able to do something. That feeling of success, even if it doesn't come from you, it's a feeling of success because you were able to foster that conversation, that relationship, that session the way that it was intended to be fostered. So I want to leave these ending thoughts with you. And I hope that this impacted someone in their daily conversations with clients, their daily conversations with therapists, with staff, with supervisees. Remember to always get to the core of why there is that resistance. And then after become curious and finally evoke the solutions from that other person. They may have better solutions than you do. And it's a very humbling experience, and it's also very effective. So I hope that you all found value in this podcast session. And I hope to see you next time. Please share your comments, share it with colleagues, share it with anyone that you think needs to hear this. Thank you so much for staying here with me today. Thank you for joining me on today's episode of MI for Change. If you're ready to keep growing your motivational interviewing skills, I'd love to invite you to explore my MI Academy, where you'll find a full library of on demand courses designed to help you put MI into practice with confidence. You can learn more at www.drmonicagilbert.com. Until next time.